Vehicle instrument panels are generally located behind the steering wheel of a motor vehicle and include a number of gauges or other displays for providing a driver with information about vehicle conditions. Many of these instruments include a background display with markings relevant to a condition being monitored and a pointer that turns to point to various ones of the markings based on information provided to the pointer by a sensor. For example, if the condition being monitored is vehicle speed, the markings on the background will indicate rate of speed in miles or kilometers per hour, and the pointer will turn to point at various ones of these rates based on information provided by a speed sensor. Generally, such instruments include a gauge motor having a rotary output shaft that can be rotated by the motor. A pointer is connected to the rotary output shaft so that it can be made to point in any direction by controlling the gauge motor. When the sensor indicates a certain rate of speed, for example, it provides this information to a controller which in turn causes the gauge motor to position the pointer point to the appropriate background marking.
Viewing these instruments while driving requires a driver to take his eyes off the road for a certain period of time, focus on the instruments, interpret the information provided, and then return his gaze to the road. If the instruments are not easy to read and logically arranged, it will be difficult to read them quickly and accurately, and therefore, the driver will spend a disproportionate amount of time looking at the instruments instead of the road. It is therefore important that the information on the instrument panel be highly visible and easy to read.
The instruments that are consulted most frequently, such as the speedometer and the tachometer, are generally located directly in front of a driver on the instrument panel. These instruments must be large enough to be read quickly, yet compact enough to physically fit in the limited space available in the small panel area immediately in front of the driver. Because of the size of the components behind the dashboard display area, it may also be necessary to space the instruments further apart than would be optimal for layout purposes, resulting in wasted space as viewed from the viewing position of the driver. The area behind the instrument panel also contains other important vehicle components, such as air vents, structural members, and other electrical components which must fit into this limited space. Great care must be taken, therefore, when designing the layout of an instrument panel to provide an easily readable display of information necessary to a driver while leaving adequate space for the other vehicle components. In addition, the more tightly the various components are packed behind the display, the more time will be required for proper assembly, leading to increased assembly and later maintenance costs. It would therefore be desirable to provide an easy-to-read vehicle display that consumed less of the valuable room behind the instrument panel than current displays and that allowed the displays of different instruments to be placed in close proximity to one another.